


Hives more likely to be there than not

by OtherCat



Series: Crooked Little House [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: A wild Nightvale reference appears, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Condesce thinks the First Ship are Deviants, Disciple thinks Signless being genuinely pitch is adorable, Dola hates Condesce platonically forever, F/M, Ghost Signless, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Psiioniic does not want this in his block, Quadrant Confusion, She is probably right, That is HIC is confused about Signless' Quadrants, talks are had
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-25 02:14:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14966945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtherCat/pseuds/OtherCat
Summary: In which Her Imperious Condescension becomes aware of the arrival of some Heroes of the Imperium, and explains why she was out in the boonies trying to build a house and chat up the Disciple.





	Hives more likely to be there than not

It happens at an official dinner on the Flagship, celebrating some official shit, because of course it does. There’s a moment that’s like a lightning strike, then a shift in perspective, and almost identity. The world spins and history changes and always-was. You’d been in the middle been in the middle of drinking a glass of wine while all this was happening. You choke and cough all over the third course, much to the horror of the other guests and your guards, who immediately swarm the table.

“No!” You gasp out, trying to get control of her aeration sponges, gills and whatever was swarming into your head. “I’m fin,” you say. “Somefin went down the wrong hatch, is all.” Making your excuses, you get away from the table, surrounded by a school of rattled guards.

They take you to a seadweller ablution block with a little parlor, a long couch and an entertainment unit. Servants come to help you into a new dress, adjust your jewelry and fix your hair. You sit your bass down and try to think through a fog of memories that ain’t quite yours, but were and never had been. Fuck. Other-you had been a miserable beach. She’d been old, angry and just plain miserable. Desperate for shit she lost and never had, under the thumb of some giant green basshole.

But she was just a past you, and there was no invading personality behind the memories.

Reset, just like your kismesis said it was going to be.

“Okay.” You take a breath. “I can’t bereef it, but this is a thing that’s actually happening.”

There’s such a smug feeling in the parlor just then. It’s followed by a warm chuckle against your fins and a tug on your horn, friendly and entirely too casual. You growl and tug your horn free of a ghostly hand. “Basshole,” you mutter. The smug feeling just gets stronger.

You take out your shelltop. There are orders to issue, things you need to explain. You need to get back to Alternia. There were Heroes of the Imperium to recognize, and you needed to explain why they were six sweep wigglers. You had a new Heiress to acknowledge, as well. You were going to need to do so much spin.

Dola is kind of mad at you when you get to her, and also confused. Dola is always kind of mad at you so that’s not a big deal. “I assure you that the location of all wiggler hives are listed and carefully monitored. There aren’t any ‘hives that weren’t there before but it’s mostly plausible that they should have been there.’” She frowns at you. “Is this some kind of joke based on the assumption Psii hasn’t sent me podcasts of Troll Welcome to Nightvale?”

“Dola, just look,” you say. “I swear they’ll be there, right where there wasn’t anything before according to the drones, but it’ll be all archived like it was.”

Dola’s mouth thins into a straight line, but she looks in the records, like you asked her. “I don’t suppose you have any other information about these anomalous wigglers?”

You list off hatch names and lusii. She is not happy about the names, and she also isn’t pleased about a few of the lusii. “The lusii should be dead,” you tell her, which she also isn’t happy about, except for the seagoat and the spider.

“They haven’t been used as lusii for _sweeps,”_ she says.

“Well, the Serket sprat had a giant spider and the Makara sprat had a seagoat. Special circumstances.”

“Like living in hives that more likely to have been built where they are than not?” Dola asks in what you’re pretty sure is a rhetorical fashion. She follows it up with, “I’ve found the Serket and Zahhak wigglers,” she says, sounding surprised, even though you _told_ her. Then she frowns. “Their hives are really very extravagant.”

“Rattling around like beans in a pod,” you agree. Dola had strong opinions about stipends and resource allotments. You’re pretty satisfied with the results of setting her loose on revamping early grub and wiggler care and education. “Be careful when you approach the lowbloods. They should all be asleep still when you find them, but the rust, gold and bronze bloods are going to panic if they see drones and adults. Probably especially the rust and gold.”

Dola frowns at that, but doesn’t question that. “Will we be sending these wigglers to the ship, since they’re apparently ‘Heroes of the Imperium,’?” she asks.

“Nah. Put ‘em up in my hive,” you tell her. Her frown doesn’t lighten. “You, know, the one your basshole wiggler made me build?”

“Your…hive is barely habitable, Empress,” Dola says.

“Is so,” I say. “It’s just a little…eccentric.”

“Your hive is a nightmare of bad architecture decisions,” Dola says.

“It’d been a while since I’d had anything built,” you say. “It’s all solid construction with a good foundation.”

“And staircases that don’t go anywhere, walled up rooms, leaning floors and mismatched windows,” Dola says. “And it hasn’t been opened or used since it was built.”

“It’s big enough for twelve wigglers, close to a resource depot and you can get it set up in no time flat,” you tell her. “That’s what construction drones are for.”

This is the story behind the house, which is coincidentally the story behind your coddamn haunting by your fucking kismesis who you didn’t realize was your fucking kismesis til he started haunting your bass:

There’s some basshole preaching about how the hemospectrum shouldn’t be a thing. That certain instincts should be ignored or weren’t as important anymore because everyone was connected or should be connected by society and mutual cooperation for survival. This all went against your philosophy of competition and rigidly maintained control of the hemocastes for greater strength and reproductive fitness.

You are not happy. Your fucking Grand Highblood is not happy. Your nobles are not happy, either your supporters of the coddamn caste-traitors supporting “The Signless.” The lowbloods are definitely not happy. You eventually put the rebellion down, and string up “The Signless” and make his lovers watch. (You did not realize at the time that Dola was not one of his quadrants but actually his lusus, which you still think is weird as fuck.) 

A perigee later the fucker appearifies his ghostly bass in your fucking throne room. None of the little rusty necromancers you keep around to get rid of hauntings can or will get rid of him for fear or money. He bitches in your head nonstop. He hates you and all your works and he’s going to tell you exactly what he thinks about you. (There is nothing about you he likes, and he is so fucking disappointed in you.)

He tries to make you cut Psiioniic loose. Not even pointing out that you’ll just put in some other yellow blood makes him reconsider. He and the Psiioniic have the pitchest fucking diamond jam because the yellow blood won’t let any of the technicians take him down. (Psii feels guilty he couldn’t protect Signless, he also feels guilty because the rig you set up for him is state of the art and connects him to the ship like it was his own body, not like something he’s dragging along like a cartbeast and is fucking sweet. Signless is furious that Psii is punishing himself, you are so fucking jealous and you don’t even fucking know why.)

Some dumb blue blood technician goes fucking _ashen_ and starts babbling about rigs that involve full mobility. The guppy is just utterly fucking inspired and babbling schematics and power sinks. Soon he and Psii are babbling at each other in tech, and you and Signless are just watching this bullshit transpire. “What the fuck is even happening,” you say. Your imperial majesty is being ignored by the geeks, but not by Signless who is this blazing furious red presence with white eyes. 

“Psii may be a stubborn dumbass, but you’ve proved you’ll cave if I’m persistent enough,” he says. “Free my mother, you heinous bitch.”

“You don’t have any lusus,” you say. “You’re a fucking mutant.”

“My mother,” he repeats, like you’re a moron. “The Dolorosa.”

“How the fuck?” you ask. “No, nevermind, don’t know, don’t care. She’s a deviant jade and the caverns wouldn’t take her back anyway.”

“She’s lived free on the surface for years after she left the caverns,” he says.

“She was a fucking fugitive with a mutant grub that should’ve been culled,” you say.

He throws you up against the nearest bulkhead. You do your best to fight back, but there’s fuck-all you can get purchase on or make a mark. The two of you are screaming at each other in pure pitch rage. “Oh hell no, not in my block!” Psii says, and separates the two of you–how he got hold of a ghost that don’t have no proper substance to hold onto, you don’t know. The fucker _mediates_ between you and the mutant. 

So you recover the Dolarosa and she hates your guts. Her buoy is dead, and fuck if she cares he’s also a fucking active haunting. She visits Psii and is in and out of your quarters. Your servants have no fucking idea of what to do about her or what her position is supposed to be. You’re fucking courtiers don’t know what to do about her. She sews and makes snide comments about your preferred color palettes, the design of your clothes, the livery of your goddamn staff.

You get nagged into trying to recover the Disciple, but that ain’t going to happen any time soon; she kills anyone you send after her and renders their blood into paint like she was some kind of olive subjuggulator. “Your gill is outta her coddamn mind,” you tell the ghost.

“You could try not sending soldiers after her,” the ghost says with a patient air. “I’m sure you can understand why the sudden appearance of ruffianannihilators wandering through her territory would be upsetting.”

“Well, how the shell am I supposed to look after her, if she keeps shanking everyone I send after her?” you ask him.

The ghost smiles at you. “Maybe you shoal-d trying talking to her yourself!”

“One, that was weak, two, I’m the coddamn Empress, you fuckers all come to me, I don’t go to you.”

“Whale, good luck with that, Empress,” the little shit says and absconds.

You are stupidly pitch for him, you realize. You otter be finding a way to keep him the fuck away from your ship, but instead you’re fucking rising to his mockery and thinking _I’ll show that little bastard what’s what._ You step up your attempts to catch Disciple, but fail pretty dramatically. The nubby little shit is helping her avoid the soldiers you send after her and isn’t shy about admitting it. This is plainly _cheating,_ but according to him you have an unfair advantage.

“Don’t see why she hasn’t dumped your bass,” you tell him, going for an emotional attack the next time he turns up. “Using her as a prawn in this game.” 

“How eels is she going to get paint for her murals?” The little shit says. “When we weir travelling people donated in exchange for portraits and sigil-work, but she’s a little far out from any settlements, and understandably wants to keep to herself.”

“Nasty little wanna-be clown,” you mutter.

“Not really,” the little shit says. “She’s a much better artist than most of the Subbjuggalators I’ve seen. Possibly because she’s able to accept and actively seeks criticism, whereas the average Subbjugalator artist tends to crush criticism, so their work tends not to improve.”

“I hate you so much,” you tell him. The very first time, completely and honestly ebon and your fins flare and flutter in utter embarrassment like you’re a teeny little grub with her first crush.

“I’m flattered,” Signless says. “But you missed your chance when you had me tortured to death.”

He says it so gently and so kindly you want scream. You almost do, but bite your tongue instead. Screaming means he wins and you don’t want him to win. Blood fills your mouth, and you want to tear at something, the rage bubbling up like something toxic from a deep sea volcano vent. It makes everything seem sharp and vivid and poisonously bright and loud. For a lack of anything else, you tangle your fingers in your hair close to the scalp, dig in and yank hard. Blood trickles down into your hair, into your eyes.

Signless catches you by the horn and untangles your hands from your hair. Dola comes in, already armed with a first aid kit. You’re pretty sure Psiioniic must have sent for her. Signless disappears, and because you are a coddamn wiggler, you curl up and burst into stupid wiggler bawling.

Dola cleans you up; tsking over the blood you got all over the sit stub and your clothes. It is pretty clear the fabric is more important than your imperial person. You can’t tell her a damn thing because she hates you platonic. You can’t tell her a damn thing because she won’t even pretend to be pale for your stupid ass. So you cry and she cleans up your cuts and all the blood.

He wins anyway. You take a shuttle down with a few guards, and set up a little campsite to wait for the Disciple to show up. You’re out there for about three nights before she makes an appearance early in the evening at the edge of your campsite. Just suddenly there when you could have sworn there hadn’t been anyone there a few minutes ago.

Against the better judgment of your guards, you approach her. She speaks, and her voice is soft and hoarse, like she hasn’t used it much for a long while. “He says you’re pitch for him, much good may it do you,” she says.

“Fuck you,” you say, still feeling raw and sick about your little breakdown. “He also say he’s been bitching at me to bring you in?”

“He says a lot of things,” the Disciple says. “I don’t always agree with him.”

“Well, he ain’t going to shut up until he knows you’re safe. Why he thinks I should be the one taking care of his followers is a mystery of the coddamn universe.”

“You’re the one he holds responsible,” Disciple says. “And he feels pitch for you as well, for no known reason in the universe.”

You’re stung by that. “You think I can’t get pitch action all up in?”

“You aren’t his widow,” Disciple says, blunt and cruel. “It doesn’t matter what you can get, you don’t _have.”_

“Not much I can do about that now, can I?” I ask. “Even if I _had_ he wouldn’t have lasted longer than a spark.”

“You wouldn’t have even known what you lost,” she says, and she’s gone again.

You don’t go after her. You stay at the campsite in the foulest mood while your guards try to figure out your imperial will or what the fuck ever. It’s a nice area, with just a hint of post-dark season chill in the breeze. The forest is blue and pink mostly, with pale greens and yellows mixed in. You don’t know from trees, except some woods are more expensive than others because they’re fancy. You know fuck all about land animals except birds are the ones with wings, but there are various kinds of both in the trees, and various kinds of insects, a few of them hellacious little bastards who want to sample imperial blood.

There’s a lot that can be handled from the campsite, you don’t need to go back just yet. You are pretty determined to win at getting Disciple to come back with you. Signless turns up a few days into your wait. “Still here? I would have thought you’d gotten bored,” he says.

“Do you, or do you not want me protect your matesprit?” You ask, aggravated.

“There’s lots of ways you can do that, that doesn’t involve dragging her up to the ship, where she wouldn’t be happy anyway,” he says.

“What the fuck am I doing here then!?” You definitely don’t shriek.

“You need to build a house,” he says.

“I need to build a house. Why the fuck do I need to build a house?”

“Well, one reason is that if Dis thinks you’re here for the long haul, she might talk to you,” he says.

“I want to talk to her why?” you ask sourly.

“You also need to listen to her,” he says. “You’re here, so there’s some hope!” Then he absconds.

You also don’t screech and pull your hair, mad as fuck, but not mad enough to claw yourself up this time.

You think about giving up. You think about just flat out not letting him have his way. At the same time the back of your brain is set on following this challenge and proving yourself. That part doesn’t care one bit that the prospective kismesis is fucking dead and you aren’t ever going to pail him. (You are never going to be properly kismeses.) It’s full of all of this hopeful determination and pitch fucking longing and it won’t let you leave.

_So_

“No that’s too big. I said house, not palace.”

_You_

“Also I think you should work on at least thirty percent of the building, to show willing.”

_Build_

“You are really hilariously bad at this.”

_The_

“A saltwater swimming pool?”

_Coddamn_

“I’m just saying if you fuck it up and it gets saltwater everywhere…”

_House_

At the end, it’s a rambling two and a half story sprawl with an attic and a basement. Front and back porch. Nothing’s quite straight and you fucked up a lot of shit, but the drones were able to make your designs work. You’re proud of what you got built, even if it’s a dilapidated mess. The generator’s placidly crunching away at fuel, the electricity works, the water heater is doing its job, you got the landscaping roughed out, and a maintenance schedule set up.

You’re admiring your work when Disciple says from behind you. “Am I supposed to live here?”

You don’t jump. “Why you and not me?” You say.

“It’s not a palace ten times as big and made of coral and gold,” she says. 

You turn all slow to face her. “Yeah well I was building it to someone else’s specifishcations.”

“Why?” she asks.

“I know fuck all how to answer that,” you tell her. “He won’t leave me be, bitching all the time. Judging me on every fucking particular. He wants to protect his quadrants. He wants to protect his lusus, he wants me to do it and I’m the one that krilled his bass. He acts like he’s dispensing life lessons and I can’t punch him in his coddamn smug face.”

“He usually backs off if someone doesn’t want to listen,” she says. “He must really be pitch. Really really pitch. _Oh.”_ Her hands fly up to cover her mouth, and she _actually fucking bounces on the balls of her feet,_ all sudden wiggler delight. “Psi’s never made him that pitch; _I’ve_ never made him that pitch!”

“Vacillating with his matesprit and kismesis?” You ask, because you’re a nosy bitch. “Wait, he’s pale for Psii, what the hell?” On the other hand, that was one obsidian diamond…

“We’re never any one quadrant,” the Disciple says.

“Y’all are deviants,” you tell her. She laughs at you.

Coddamn.

Talking happens, rebellions happen. Signless makes suggestions. You occasionally follow them. You have to kick the Grand Highblood’s bass a few times because he thinks he has more of a say than he actually does. (“I’m scared of science and social change, look at my codpiece durr hurr.”) There’s an uprising involving some bronzeblood you think was mostly being manipul8ted by some cerulean bitch. (Signless is snide with you for assuming that, completely ignoring the coddamn evidence.)

Eventually he explains about the house. He tells you about his visions, and a game. The Game is part of some vast machinery that creates universes, destroying the world of the species that plays the game. Alternia is/was/not slated to become the next world to produce Players for it.

“Our particular edition of the game is actually part of a tangled up mess around an object called the Green Sun,” Signless says. “So the process is extra complicated for getting viable universes. In an ordinary game there’s always a reset so the origin universe can continue, with iterations of the complete set of players. Unfortunately the Green Sun is a pile up disaster of several universes, so the resets are pushed pretty far out. Apparently there’s also a demon involved, who keeps destroying iterations of the players. There’s an absolutely lovely young lady who’s taken it upon herself to fix the problem.”

“And this universe is the ‘reset’?” You ask him.

“I wasn’t sure at first,” he says. “But things became much clearer when I met the young lady in question.”

“So these Players are going to show up?”

“Wigglers set back to their original ages when they entered the game, but with gifts from the Game,” he says. “I’d like them to live in a better world than the one they came from, also, it would be better for them to live together than not while they adjust.”

You want to ask him questions about “gifts from the game,” but you know he won’t answer you direct. “And if I make that ‘better world’ for you, everyone else benefits too.”

He smiles at you. “Of course.” 


End file.
